A History Of Fast Food Joints That Sell Drugs

Last week a Burger King in New Hampshire got a lot of attention last week when the click-friendly headline of “A Burger King Was Allegedly Selling Weed to Customers Who Asked for ‘Extra Crispy Fries’” hit the news media bloodstream. That article, from VICE re-reported another article from the Sea Coast Online, which told the tale of two fast food workers — Garret “Nasty Boy” Norris and Meagan Dearborn — who were busted by undercover agents after they purchased weed through the Burger King drive thru.

Apparently, they used a code word for the transaction (“extra crispy fries”), and would hand whoever used that special word combination a coffee cup full of nuggets. Unfortunately for them, the po-po got wind of the scheme and that was the demise of Nasty Boy and Dearborn.

It turns out there have been many fast food drug-dealing schemes over the years, many with the same hallmarks as this one: code words, drive thrus and, ultimately, some cop who gets a step ahead.

Heroin at Mickey Dee’s

Like, for instance, there was the McDonald’s in Pittsburgh that sold smack back in 2014. There, too, a codeword was used. Just say “I’d like to order a toy” and you’d get a sack of H, literally in your Happy Meal. Again, an undercover cop made a controlled buy, and seized 60 bags of the hard stuff.

The Packed Bows In The Kids Meal

Actually, the incident in New Hampshire wasn’t even Burger King’s first run in with the weed business this decade. Back in 2013, a BK employee in Detroit needed to stash a freshly packed bowl of weed so his bosses wouldn’t find it, and put it in an empty Kids Meal box. It worked pretty good until someone actually used the box to serve a kid their meal, and that kid got a way cooler toy than they were expecting.

The Vast Fast Food Drug Conspiracy Of New England

This one is probably the granddaddy of all fast food drug crimes. It involved several fast food franchises across state lines, and even across companies. Two Wendy’s locations, a McDonald’s, and a Taco Bell were all implicated in the scheme. They had probably the best code word of any case we’ve encountered. You ask for Muenster cheese on your burger and you get your drugs. If only they’d been as careful with who they served as they were with their code words. Undercover agents got employees to deal them drugs at every location raided.

One DEA agent responsible for the bust said the drugs “were even at ‘fast food’ pricing, super cheap.”